The Annual Lunacy (aka "I Don't Do Winter") Challenge Chatzone

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Alex321

Guru
Location
South Wales
And got another one in today - my two longest rides of the year being two days apart. And today's with quite a lot of climbing (main climb being Bwlch from the Treorchy side) - 900m in 71Km. That may have been a bit ambitious, but I made it.

So far haven't been able to get my Wahoo to sync to the app, so no Strava yet :sad:

Much nicer weather today, though still noticeable headwind for a lot, but sunny and 14-17C temperature throughout.
 
And got another one in today - my two longest rides of the year being two days apart. And today's with quite a lot of climbing (main climb being Bwlch from the Treorchy side) - 900m in 71Km. That may have been a bit ambitious, but I made it.

So far haven't been able to get my Wahoo to sync to the app, so no Strava yet :sad:

Much nicer weather today, though still noticeable headwind for a lot, but sunny and 14-17C temperature throughout.

How are the legs?
My knees give me gip when I do more than one big ride with climbs within a few days of each other. I never remember this until I get a reminder from my knees.
 

Alex321

Guru
Location
South Wales
How are the legs?
My knees give me gip when I do more than one big ride with climbs within a few days of each other. I never remember this until I get a reminder from my knees.

They are telling me I've done a lot just now, but I expect they will not be too bad in the morning.

If I go out on the bike at all tomorrow, it will be a short "recovery" ride.

I don't think I've ever done two rides of that length so close together.
 
Straight down the V3 Voie Verte from Mauron to Questembert (Bel-Air) today. A simple return would have given a total of between 108/109km – but I wanted to try and cycle ‘my age in miles’ today. I made a couple of deviations on the return leg – and I reached 119km (I needed 118km for 73 miles) so that’s one challenge I won’t need to worry about again until next year.

My fourth longest ride ever and I’m feeling the effects this evening. But pleased that I did the ride and that I took advantage of some very nice weather.
 
I’ve just noticed that yesterday’s qualifying ride was my 100th in this challenge (since 2019). That count doesn’t include the 8 MCAM rides from last year that were transferred over when I failed to complete the 2025 MCAM challenge.

Looking ahead to the next couple of years, I expect that I may have to drop out of one or two challenges – but I’ll keep going with this one.

I’ve noticed that my recovery time after longish rides has now become several days. Planning and executing Lunacy Distance rides every fortnight or so throughout most of the year fits neatly into what I’d like to achieve in 2027 and 2028 – but it is starting to impact my ability to participate in other challenges.

Knocking out 200km most weeks of the year is still do-able – but it’s becoming easier to achieve as two or three rides a week, rather than 8 or 10. It also means that some of my bikes aren’t getting much fresh air. I guess that means lowering the annual targets for some of the older bikes ... I’m reluctant to do this – but something has to give as I get older.

Yesterday’s ride also bumped my AME (Annual Metric Eddington) up to 35km. A long way to go to get to my target of 56km – but I’m more or less on track.
 
Good to hear that you intend to keep going with the Lunacy :-) It certainly has the merit of being the most flexible, in several respects, which has to be advantageous as challenges become more ... errr... challenging! Plus, the longer rides are more involving to plan, quite apart from executing them, which seems to me to be a good thing as I, and I think this is true for you from what you've said in the past, enjoy the planning aspect as much as the cycling.
 

13 rider

Guru
Location
leicester
4th ride of over 50 mile but under 62.14 miles to avoid cross posting done , deliberately made it harder than most rides ,40 miles with just 2 biggish climbs then the last 10 miles packed in 7 of the 13 climbs (according to my wahoo) on the ride .Last big ride before the week after next adventure which will see a few rides posted in the climbing challenge as well as the various distance challenges I'm in
 

Alex321

Guru
Location
South Wales
5th ride today.

Good ride until crossing A48 after Llancarfan. Punctured early on that hill, managed to reach the top before stopping to swap inner tube, but the spare tube went down even faster once in the tyre :sad:
So had to stop again, find the puncture in teh orignal, and try to patch it out on the road. Got it to hold enough air to get me home, but already getting a bit soft again by then.
Annoying end to what had been a good ride until then.

Would probably have wibbled around a bit at the end to get it over 40 miles otherwise, but by the time I'd had the wheel and tyre off twice, I couldn't be bothered.
 
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